


sharing reality

by josephspit



Category: Original Work
Genre: Blood and Violence, Confusion, Delusions, Depression, Domestic Violence, Hallucinations, Hearing Voices, Hospitalization, Imaginary Friends, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Mental Instability, Mental Institutions, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Psychological Trauma, Psychosis, Therapy, Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-22
Updated: 2020-08-04
Packaged: 2021-03-05 05:13:27
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,920
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25438999
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/josephspit/pseuds/josephspit
Summary: these are just short, small stories involving Steph. there isnt a linear timeline in this, so it's really just one offs and events. didnt know what to do with this to be honest, some of it is very old. only explicit because I dont know how deep into this I'm going to get





	1. a bug in the room

It was only later in a safer, more stable setting that I realized existing during lights out in the ward was not dissimilar to being a bug trapped in a small, dark room. There are four walls, and there must be a floor and ceiling. To be safe I would not (at first) fly too far up or down in the blinding darkness of the room, but within the hours of the night I would become lost and desperate enough to fly in every direction, much too fast and only chaotically. Hypervigilance has subconsciously mapped the furniture and various living items spread across the room in my mindscape; surely I could navigate the room without eyes at this point. This is what we often think about most places we grow intimately accustomed to. When night comes and its "lights out" my entire existence and reality (as purely broken as they both are) truly become the terrified bug in the suddenly enormous, pitch black room. With no concept of time I fall through the room, here to there, from wall to wall. Crashing upon beds and dressers and only one door. It is most nearly blinding when I see it, but I desperately throw myself to the harsh white shine of a flashlight aimed down at my face through the safety glass of the large window in the door, as a case doctor routinely peers down to be sure I am still breathing. Of course I would be stationed beside the door, where the hourly blinding ritual stirs my paranoid mind and unnaturally still form. Secretly, I'm very grateful for these brief disturbances in the hellish darkness. It is all that I know. Hour by hour, I fly from wall to wall, crash into the two small dressers occasionally. I fly straight upwards for what feels like far too long before falling to what must dangerously be close to the floor before I'm careening myself towards the door again, attempting to will the only event I know into existence, and it works. My mind desperately tries to consume the scream of the sudden flashlight into my very being, overpowering me with ecstacy and fulfillment. This is a cycle that most people broken by the unreality have learned to live within. This is all that I am, all I have ever been. All I remember, and all that I can ever be. I am the bug in the room. Allowing the light to envelope my face, I desperately accept the only change in the darkness; it is the turning of the clock hands, it is the only meaning and minuscule peek into an inconcivable reality that I can rely on in this foreign place. With nothing left of reality, we cling to the loop. I imagine that I must be lying motionless on my back, my head turned slightly to the right, so that my eyes might land immediately upon the light every time it returns. What must these doctors see, as they gaze through gridded glass into the darkness of a secret cage. The tiny flashlight IS the only reminder of what was before, and while that can be seen as a blessing and the bringer of reality, for those slightly more unfortunate than I these simple flashes of light must act as a pure catalyst for the ensuing insanity. By the first morning I would understand why the sedatives were routinely offered and heavily recommended for those in my boat. This reality's lights out was an entirely different phrase than the one over There. I could not imagine experiencing it in the sedative induced haze, left only to pray that the medicine truly let my mind rest. That was a twin horror I would not risk experiencing. So in short, the occasionally humorous saying "the nights are the hardest" can truly be understood ironically here. Cold, unforgiving shivers run through my lower back at this thought. Strangely enough, this feeling brought a much different feeling side by side with it. Satisfying, fulfilling and horrifying, similar to the physical sensation I get when I unwillingly predict the future.

I can't recall the first time I felt the future, or the first time it predicted me. From the way I have gathered these things happen, events without consequence occur frequently. My subconscious attempted to peer over the canyon that grew between my case therapist and I as, completely detached, I began to speak of my childhood. I spoke of feeling isolating things as a child, as well as just being isolated in general. I understood as an adult that a lot of what doctors call "unnatural" and "serious warning symptoms" flew under the radar for my family. Perhaps it was because the symptoms and rituals I performed were hereditary and not entirely taboo, or that my family was always good at covering up horrifying shit. The choices I felt were necessary were not unnatural or warning symptoms any more so than an act of pure survival, which is precisely what they tell me now. Mental health in general was always a conversation, but not one you would mistakenly speak to another about. Naturally it was more something that was whispered about in the hours of the night; in hushed tones beneath the blare of colorful cartoons that were meant to hold a child's focus. Quietly echoing between teacher and parent in the lonely hall of a school which I only attended in kindergarten, as I stared up at my irregularly vulgar drawing. Sometimes it was painfully and urgently shouted from one parent to another in outraged questioning, demanding, begging. Or, it exposed itself simply through outright abuse. It's strange how severe mental illness always manifests in a stark crescendo, completely unnecessary and so, so loud. At least, this was the case for most of my ill family. I spoke to the brown shoed doctor about my imaginary friends; the few basic animals that followed me throughout the school days and watched my interactions, my crumbling social skills and the home I built in the receiving end of merciless bullying. I imagine I manifested the small imaginary animals for my sheer unending adoration for the living animals in general. And like animals, they couldn't speak. They had no opinions of me, my inability to fit in or of my bullies. They only watched. They watched... This thought brought me to remember the stranger creatures. The ones that never seemed quite me, or even whole. I had no connection with them, or even desire for their comfort and company. Their entire existences felt like a demon began scribbling a hellish drawing in a child's mind before being noticed by God and abandoning the half assed sin. A creature taller than my child form with four legs kept behind me at all times; I only ever saw its shadow. I watched the shadows of its long, skinny legs move across floors and walls in front of me as it shifted itself around behind me. There wasn't much to say about it; it made me nervous and paranoid. I tried to play with it using my own shadow. It never spoke. There was a tall, blurry, gray creature without arms but long legs. I never knew if he had a head; I could never bring myself to look up at him or even near him, which was a problem I still struggled with to this day. I only knew he was always around, in the corner of my vision. A greasy, long haired woman with a stiff neck, two arms and half of a torso. She traveled through the walls, floor and ceilings of nearly any building I visited. She scared me. When I was eleven, she hung herself in my room, at the end of my bed. The memory is one of grief; I remember I imagined a liquid darkness around her most of the time. But that night as I imagined it dripping from her hanging form and she faded, even though I hated her so much, I remember trying to will her back. Will her to stay, into not fading away and leaving. I will never forget the cold, painful, confusing yet all-knowing feeling I experienced as she died. I cried for her. She and the gray creature did speak, from time to time. They pushed my limits; they questioned my morals, my beliefs, my religion and basically anything that a child never feels the need to question. I pondered this for a moment, because during intense moments of paranoid energy I recall voices doing the same thing. I shifted uncomfortably. I did not want to speak about voices. The sharp sound of a small stack of paperwork being straightened on the clipboard in my therapist's lap jolted my muscles around in my body, awakening me. I hadn't noticed she had gathered notes, or even released them from the wooden clipboard she clutched tightly. "Well, we may have a lot here but I don't believe you are completely out of my depth, Steph." She continued to speak but the realization that I lost myself while speaking distracted me from the entire room. With how terrified I am of doctors, how did I grow comfortable enough to forget I was sitting in front of one? I wonder if this is the allure of therapists and the ritual of therapy. There must be something in the brain that desperately longs to be unburdened, even if you do not realize the contents of your mind are a burden. I can't imagine anyone being able to remember back to their childhood without needing to fall into a meditative state. I distantly shake my head, feeling different and looking to the corner of the room, as if trying to will a hallucination into waking me up a bit. "Steph?" The woman asked, and I moved my eyes back to her. "Would you be comfortable seeing me weekly?"  
We understood it wasnt a question. I nodded.


	2. When we're awake

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have no idea if this is even going to make sense, I dont know how to explain these things

The tv was very still in front of me. So still, growing more and more unlike the room as it began to rock back and forth. The main reason I had paused my pacing was to listen to the aggressive man on the news, but somehow I found the white wall behind the television much easier to watch. I realized very briefly I was in the middle of doing it again; I was walking in the 8 step diamond I had scribbled a lot of notes about. The realization drifted from my thoughts almost immediately as I felt my eyes unfocus near the wall again. Attempting to stare at it, I listened to the banter of now two people on the news station, as patterns began to blossom and spread through the house and the room began to sway more noticeably. I flexed my fingers out of the fists I had unconsciously made, bringing blood back into my hands and trying to ground myself. I'm here. Where is here? The distant sound of the front door unlocking didn't fully register as the question of here loomed heavily inside my head. This was so like the dreams I've had, too similar to be a trick. Something is wrong, something is bad and it's coming. I felt the future spot me for just a moment and I shut my eyes, trying to adjust to the horrible over-consciousness, hypervigilance. When my legs jerked me forward into pacing again I knew I was just moving with the thoughts and thinking in circles. Distantly I noted to myself, that's how it starts if you haven't noticed. But my thoughts and the entire world around me seemed to seize up and completely stop for a moment as the world froze and I blinked, lying flat on my back in the floor; the left and back sides of my head were pounding in unison. I looked up at the figure standing over me and my vision blurred as they offered me a hand to stand up. I looked near it warily, unsure of what was happening before just looking away and standing on my own. Memories of being jerked up off of the floor after suddenly falling- being knocked down- flashed in my mind for a moment, almost like I was traveling between memories and real time. I looked at the ground, recognizing Jay's brown loafers and dark blue jeans standing in front of me. I felt my face morph into confusion as my head ached, solidly. I raised a hand to touch it and mumbled, "Did...did you hit me?" His voice was completely flat. "Why do you think that happened?"  
I turned from him and began to shuffle away. What did that mean? I tried to swallow the knot in my throat. "Why do I think?" I tried to wonder aloud, mostly to myself as I questioned my confusion, my words, his words. I felt his eyes on me for a solid moment before he said, "That's a better question."  
I stopped as I reached the hall, and sighed, checking out the walls and the ceiling. Without turning, I spoke a little quieter.  
"Can you just leave me alone?"  
I felt my entire body leap into fight or flight as a deafening bang resonated behind me, somewhere in the wall. My hands went straight to my head in instinctual terror as so much energy flooded me that I froze, trying to listen through my heartbeat pounding in my ears and throat. God, my fucking head. It ached, heavy and more behind my eyes now than anything. It had to have been his fist that hit my head, and also maybe just went through the wall, but god damn it hurt, and that wasn't something Jay would do. He doesn’t hurt, he helps.  
When my body didn’t move I forced out words that felt like they weren’t even coming from me anymore. I had long since retreated to the hiding places in my mind as my brain robotically spit questions out at him, trying to understand the situation and protect me.  
"What.. are you doing?"  
I heard another crash behind me, closer than where I assumed he was and a jolt of fear shot through my legs and arms again. I felt all of them begin to shake.  
"No one wants you alive."  
I felt my eyes sting at that as there was another loud crash behind me and it shook me into action. I unconsciously took a step forward before caving to the fear and wrapping my shaking arms around my middle in a pathetic attempt to feel more real. I barely caught myself mumbling through the sound of the next object crashing against the floor; this one sounded like the coat rack by the door. I'm not even sure what I was saying now, as the pressure in my head was painfully increasing. Sometimes just the vibrations of words leaving my throat was grounding. I felt the wind of something come flying by my head as I saw its shadow in my periphery before just shutting my eyes tight, listening to the crash of it further down the hall. Slowly, I slid into a squat in the floor, knees against my chest and my pulsing head in my hands. I just listened, and I wasn't even sure of what Jay could be destroying anymore. When the crashing suddenly stopped, all I could hear was my quiet, quickened breathing and his panting; before loud, violent footsteps gained speed towards me. I felt myself rock back and forth for just a second, biting my tongue as hard as I could bear and blinking away sudden tears so I could turn around to face him; to face what my brain screamed I couldn't take and knew I wouldn't understand, but I didn't care anymore. Although I felt like my eyes were slow to recognize my surroundings, I turned so quickly my right knee barely caught me in a half kneel, breathing through the panic. My eyes glazed over the few pictures of my young mother on the walls my grandmother had hung decades ago. I studied the door leading outside, still locked. The furniture, all still in place and untouched. The living room was empty and quiet, save for the tv people still murmuring. As though they had noticed it all had stopped for a moment, shadows darted over the white walls again, a little more violently than when I stood in front of them a few moments ago. I realized this as my head pounded, cheeks damp and I watched them fade away slowly. The only sound left was the television, and the murmuring. Quiet. "Its okay." I forced through my teeth, mostly to myself but also perhaps it was for everything else in the room. On the walls, coming through the door, in the hallway, in my memories. The weird shadows that only show themselves so that I know something bad was happening, because otherwise how would I ever know? Never alone a moment when in the moment alone.  
"It's fine." I declared to the situation, and it was. It was me saying that too. It sounded like me, it felt like me. These thoughts swirled around in my aching head, poking me. This was just another dream, it was just another place that entity kept taking me to when I slept. Godwin. I had just fallen asleep. I tried to grin for myself and her, to prove to us I was okay and that this did not shake or confuse me. I knew she was in my mind, in the room, looking through my eyes into the situation. The thought made me roll my head carefully on my neck. I felt my mouth open more in a grimace than the attempted smile, with too much teeth and tight lips. My hands blossomed between open and closed fists as I leaned forward. "It's fine." I said again, and swung my right fist down hard towards myself, into my left arm. It felt the same as it always did; the pain was fast and loud before turning into a burning ache. Again. And once more. "I'm on top of it." I lifted that arm, now burning with every movement, to grab onto an end table to pull myself to my feet. The muscles in that arm spasmed and I buckled once before trying again to succeed rising from the floor. "I'm stressed sometimes." I said now on my feet, shakily grabbing a small stack of glass coasters on the end table. For a moment, I breathed heavily in the moment for the violence I had only just prophesized.  
The uncontrollable rage, confusing thoughts, the excitement and the RELIEF was just so, worth it. Areas in my vision went black as though the rage were literally possessing me for a moment as I threw the stack as hard as I could towards the white wall. Not directly at the shadows but definitely directed at something. I imagined my mother there, taking the attack. And then Jay. I felt a rip on my head as the sensation of someone gripping my hair and jerking hard suddenly flashed through me and I jerked my hands up to protect my head. A scream that sounded like mine echoed for a brief moment as I saw a vision of my bloody hands in front of me, although I was vaguely aware I was holding them over my head. Was this a dream? A memory?  
When the coasters connected with the wall and shattered violently, the sound was nearly deafening in the supposedly quiet room as I watched the large shards scatter across the floor and I suddenly found myself addicted to the definite change of reality. A mark of reality, a flag on an uninhabited planet. I walked business-like over to the mess, glancing down at the glass and then glancing around the room nervously before back down at the mess. "Yeah, that's pretty okay. That's good. Look at it."  
I kneeled to pick up some of the shards just to hold, some of them pricking and cutting easily into my hands. I held a particularly large one in my right hand and closely studied it. "Yeah, that's... That’s better." Before my thoughts began to drift again I stood, squeezing the shard in my hands. Where was I? Like prophecy, the door beside me unlocked and opened precisely the way it did a few minutes ago and I leapt up to my feet. It wasn’t quite adrenaline that was pulsing through me, but more of an unending paranoid energy fueling these small cogs and gears that had no need to turn any longer. In a mental fight or flight I naturally held the sharp chunk of glass up to the door, like a weapon. Jay's tan khaki legs came through the door as he hung his coat, looking vaguely bigger than usual. As he turned to close the door I brought my eyes upwards for a quick glance at this possibility and caught his gaze in a strange breath of reality. I forced my eyes uncomfortably to his shoes again, and I wondered briefly what my expression was. I felt discomfort, fear, confusion. Anger? I noticed his head tilt down at the reddish shard of sharpness in my hand. He didn't move while he surveyed the situation until he saw my raised arm move just slightly, and he jerked his head back up. He seemed to swallow painfully just before speaking. "Steph. What...uh, what's up?" I looked at his right shoe, standing on a chunk of glass. We stood in silence for another moment while I thought about it and he shuffled uncomfortably. "Is that...was that the uh, clock?" He swallowed again as his body seemed to tense, not seeming to want to look away from me to find out. Comfort started to settle in my stomach almost unnaturally as I recognized this as a shared reality and he watched me lower my arm a bit, before it rested at my side. "I don’t know." I mumbled tiredly, and turned to look down at the mess around my feet. I crouched down and started to move the pieces around with my free hand before Jay crouched next to me. "Here let me help. Is it okay if I touch your hand?"  
I stared down hard at the mess between us before giving him a short nod. Something felt so wrong, so bad. What was wrong? His fingers immediately brushed against my hand, the hand I was holding the makeshift weapon in. I felt myself freeze for a moment and tried to remain that way. When I didn't react or move, he pressed two fingers in between my palm up against my scar and the shard, pulling it out of the skin in my palm stretching upwards toward my middle finger. Slowly, he pulled it out of my hand and exhaled quietly through his nose. As he sat back a little, I felt him look at me and the discomfort and distrust grew in me again. I nearly felt it mirrored in him. Why did it have to feel like this? Before it could get overwhelming I held up my other hand and opened it, exposing all of the tiny shards stuck in my palm. Jay sighed.  
"Yeah, okay. Follow me."  
And as I stood, I realized for some reason, I always would.


End file.
